JavaSound *had* very high-latency sound, the kind that was unacceptable (IMO) for an arcade game. Everything was done in software on Windows prior to Tiger.

Now that the new DirectAudioDevices are returned by the mixers, you can have the same kind of performance (latency-wise) as you would thru DirectSound.

HOWEVER, the JavaSound specs do NOT impose that an implementation support basic controls such as volume changes. Apparently the goal was to provide just a "pure" line to the sound card, nothing more.

What this means is if you want anything more than straight playback and looping, you have to implement your own DSP functions. Yes, even for stupid volume changes, just in case the implementation you're using doesn't support the control. It most likely won't unless you're using JS's non-hardware mixer, the default prior to DirectAudioDevices.

Tritonus.org has some JS-plugins that do the heavy-lifting (especially for volume changes), but you still have to integrate it to your mixing routines. Definitely not a plug-and-play solution.

I implemented by game audio lib a couple of months ago, after looking at the open source alternatives and their deployment/stability issues, I chose JavaSound and I'm still happy with it. I spent a lot of time tho tweaking my mixing routines to avoid any pops/clicks during my sound playback. Beware. I also only play wave files in my game.

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